Stay
by AnnabethLuna
Summary: "'Had a plan,' she informed him. 'No one gets hurt. No touching guns.'" It's not quite a thrashing, but it needed to happen. Simon and River, right after Objects in Space.


Simon came to slowly, swimming up out of dark unconsciousness to warm light behind his eyelids. Mind once again situated in his body, he kept his eyes closed and took stock of sensations: something light and soft covering his body; a strange heaviness in his limbs; pressure on his right hand.

A sense of place came back first: he was in the infirmary. Of course he was. He remembered lying in the chair, giving instruction while Zoe pulled a bullet out of his leg –

Bullet. He'd been shot. _Now_ it all came rushing back. Early, the mentally-unstable bounty hunter – and River –

 _River._

Before he could do anything to either express or ease the sudden flash of anxiety, the pressure on his hand increased. A small and solemn voice above him announced, "Awake."

Now his eyes snapped open. "River?"

His voice was hoarser than he would have expected, but that concern was barely a mark on his mind, a toothpick scratch compared to the face of his sister looking down at him, the corners of her lips lifting in a pleased smirk. "Simon."

A deep breath rushed out of him, explosive relief. He couldn't help flicking his eyes over her face and body, as best he could – no discernible injuries, and why would there be? She had been safe the whole time, even though he'd thought – he'd feared –

But no. She was here, she was safe – she was perched on the counter next to him. He twitched his hand and felt her fingers wrapped tightly around it, which explained the pressure. "You're here," he managed, giving it a weak squeeze. "I was afraid" –

Afraid of what? Before he could manage to articulate any of the numerous fears he had about her at any given time, on any given day, much less the deep, stabbing panic when he'd thought he'd lost her _willingly_ to a bounty hunter, taking her back to a place he'd never again have the chance to rescue her – before any of that had the chance to stumble out of his mouth, she reached down with her free hand to put a finger over his lips. "Dummy," she said, and that tone – it was almost like the old River.

He mustered up a flicker of the old Simon, indignant mostly out of nostalgia. "Hey!"

The smile on her face was gone, but the fondness remained. It was more of a balm than Simon would have liked to admit, after all the times she'd shrieked, lashed out at him, failed to recognize him for who he was. "Had a plan," she informed him. "No one gets hurt. No touching guns." Her hand moved to a spot on his leg: the place where he'd been shot, but he only knew that because he could see it. No pain – they must have doped him after he'd passed out. "No metal, goes in too hard where it doesn't" –

Her face started to crinkle in concern, and Simon fought down the new fear that she was rapidly losing lucidity. "And I wrecked it, huh?" he said, laughing lightly, striving for a normal tone. "Sorry about that."

She nodded seriously. "Silly Simon. Have to hold all the instruments, steady hands, shots and strength. Won't let other people do what needs to be done." She touched his face again. "I wanted to save you this time."

He looked up at the face of his sister – his beautiful, brilliant, broken sister – and a wave of affection and relief and love washed over him, so strong he could see her eyes close briefly when it hit her, too. "You always save me, _meimei_ ," he promised. "Since you were born, you've been saving me." Her hair was falling across her face; he reached up with an arm heavier than he'd expected to brush it back. "Having you here saves me. Understand?" He held her gaze, hoping she would.

"You gave up everything you had," she whispered, the words an echo from long ago. "Would be there right now."

His own shameful words hit him harder than Early's bullet, and more painful, too. There was no blame in River's voice, but that only made it worse; he closed his eyes against a barrage of regret. "No," he said uselessly. "I didn't mean – I didn't want" –

But she knew. Of course she knew, and it wasn't _fair_ , because he'd made the choice to save her _knowing_ what it would cost him. He'd signed up for this willingly because she was the most important thing he would ever have. And just because he couldn't control every thought he ever had didn't mean the government had had the right to give her access to all of it, even the thoughts he wanted to squash, the ones he hated himself for having –

They were an occasional weakness, not his whole being; his problem to deal with, and she shouldn't have to carry it as well.

"It's okay," she was saying now, her hand relaxed in his. He was afraid she would try to pull it away, and held on tighter. "Don't have to feel guilty."

"If I don't," he whispered harshly, "then you don't either, okay, River? Nothing I could have ever had or done is worth losing you. Even knowing everything that would happen" – He gestured expansively, to take in the bullet to the leg, the bruises and cuts, the protein-dominant meals on a breaking-down ship whizzing constantly through the emptiness of space, the ever-present fear that lengthened minutes to hours and weeks into years until he sometimes looked in the mirror with surprise at the lack of gray in his hair – "I'd go back and do it again, every single time."

She didn't say anything, and he groped for her other hand, as though gripping her physically would keep her with him, keep her consciousness from slipping through his grasp. "You need to hear me, River!" he said urgently. "You can't leave me, okay? Nothing else matters as long as you're safe."

She nodded slowly, solemnly, her face still crunched in concern, but he couldn't tell if the expression was new or leftover, if the haze that sometimes separated her from him was sweeping over her mind. "No leaving," she repeated. She took her time with the next few words, concentrating closely as though dredging each one up from a sucking bog. "You, too." One hand let go of his to push a strand of hair back from his forehead. "You have to stay." Her eyebrows scrunched now in what he was pretty sure was determination – to bring the words out in the right order? "I need you . . . to stay."

 _Need you to stay_. He was always afraid, it seemed – afraid someone would hurt her or that she would hurt herself, afraid that she would never get better, that the River he remembered was gone forever. But there was a worse fear than that, a fear born of two years of desperate decoding and despairing searches: the fear of being separated from her. He'd thought he'd lost her to Early, and worse, had thought she _wanted_ to go. But these words –

She wanted him to stay, and that meant that _she_ wanted to stay.

Nothing mattered in comparison to that.

Calm rushed over Simon's mind, the clarity that anxiety had lent him fading into a liquid state of relief and painkillers. Keeping his eyes open was harder than before; he could feel sleep tugging at him, gluing his limbs to the mattress and threatening to pull him completely under. But he managed to squeeze River's hand one more time. " _Meimei_ ," he said again, lacing his tone with as much lucidity and conviction as his drugged-up state could muster. "I'm not going anywhere."

She smiled at him, then – a full, real smile, like he hadn't seen on her face since she'd danced so joyfully in Jiangyin. Then she bent down over him, her hair tickling his face, and kissed him on the forehead.

His eyes fell closed again, and he felt himself slipping over the edge into sleep, but the last thing he felt was the pressure of her hand still in his. Not letting go.


End file.
